Joe Bedy
Central Christian Church
April 9 2002
Goodness
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there
is no law.
The Greek word for Goodness is "agathosune" and means "in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” It is described as being, along with righteousness and truth, “the fruit of the light” which Christians have been “made” in Christ. Here, as elsewhere, we are reminded that the Christian life in its truth is likeness to God, the source and perfection of all good. It is a picture of God Himself expressing His goodness in and through us as Christians. It is the idea of being morally honorable, pleasing to God and therefore beneficial for Christian witness and work. It is identified in the context of various scripture passages with these ideas, prove it, cleave to it, just do it, work it, follow after it, be zealous of it, imitate it, overcome evil with it, authorities minister and rule with it that it may be of benefit by doing so.
Key to goodness is this idea of: Morals, Morality
In the Christian it is not a mere passive quality, but the deliberate preference of right to wrong, the firm and persistent resistance of all moral evil, and the choosing and following of all moral good.
Something has happened to goodness and morality and not just in postmodern man. It began happening the minute God gave man absolute truth. Do you want to know what happened to God’s standard of goodness and morality? I heard it the other day from my own daughter when she got busted for disobedience. What did she say?
Anybody know?
She said well, what I did was not so bad compared to…
COMPARED TO WHAT? COMPARED TO WHAT THE OTHER KIDS ARE DOING.
The very worst thing we can do, is accept by our behaviors the lie that all things are relevant. That we can be better than the other guy and in so doing, be right and moral in the eyes of God.
That is what happened to morality and goodness; the truth of God has been perverted. Man has wanted to govern himself, replace God with himself a s ruler and man wants to be the one to make and modify the moral standards of his society. People say you cannot legislate morality, but in actuality we do, by accepting morals that deviate from God’s. The Amish may take it too far, but they certainly live closer to God’s ideal than most.
I saw a movie on TV the other night it was on the Hallmark channel about the Amish, I think it was called “Harvest Fire.” An FBI agent was sent their by the government to help, I know that sounds oxymoronic; “I am from the government I am here to help.” Anyway a 16-18 yr old girl was forbidden by her mother to see the boy she loved, so she went to tell him she could not see him anymore, because her mother forbid it.
Well, the female FBI agent said, “well if you love him won’t that hurt you,” she said,” yes it will, but not as much as it will if I disobey my mother.” Now, that is Godly morality!
But the world perverts what God has laid down as says well if you love him go against your parents or even puts pressure on the parents to question what kind of a mother separates her daughter from the boyfriend she loves.
I don’t know about you but the last time I checked God had made parents and He had made children, the way I read it parents are still in control and accountable to God, the decisions and actions we take better be God’s way! When should the child be the parent?
We want to escape His standards and make up our own which are based on the mores, norms and values we determine. We want to compare ourselves to what other people establish as right or wrong an then, you see, if we can live a life which is just a little better than theirs we can appear Holy, righteous and moral. If we can look a little better than the tax collector in the corner we can feel better about ourselves. Wrong, Wrong and more Wrong.
From Funk and Wagnall’s Standard Collegiate Dictionary-morality is defined Conformity or degree of conformity, to conventional rules without or apart from inspiration or guidance from religion or other spiritual influences, that have been established by man.
My goodness Funk and Wagnall have even changed the original definition of the word!
A. One man James Hunter in Leadership magazine writes: We Americans generally want to think of ourselves as good people. That in many respects, is where the trouble begins.
B. Nobel prize winner Sam Bellow says: “ A man is only as good as what he loves”
Jesus when confronted by the rich young man who asked good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life Jesus answered not with why do you call me “good teacher” but with why do you call me good and then catch this He says No one is good except God alone.
I. I saw the other day that ( in one state) the age of consent for homosexual sex has been dropped to 16 years old. The world today would say that’s what the founding fathers meant with they wrote about the pursuit of happiness.
Today the world believes it is a God given right to lust after flesh. It’s just a sexual preference.
Schoolteachers and health departments can give our children birth control and until recently in this state our daughters or granddaughters could obtain an abortion and we did not even have to know about it.
I t would not surprise me to see the age of sexual consent dropped to 12 years old and if someone has sex with our little boy or girl it won’t be a crime–. Because it is all-relative. It is just their sexual preference a new morality is emerging.
Millions of dollars are given each year to Planned Parenthood for sex education, abortions and birth control. Coupled by millions that goes to endowment for the arts to promote pornography.
The world will apply the post Christian theory- people are basically good these acts are merely preferences and a free society of postmodern man should not be thwarted by the narrow minded few.
II. In the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah 4 were saved and one did not last very long. Even Abraham must have believed there was at least ten.
III. Narrow mind- narrow way. Have you ever considered there might be a correlation. Just a thought J. Something has gone drastically wrong?
In the 50’s we lost our innocence w/ the advent of television the adventure and excitement of sin was brought right into our living rooms, in the 60’s we lost our respect for authority- nobody was going to tell us what to do. Do you remember when it used to be “give me liberty or give me death,” and then we changed and it went to give me liberty- Today it’s just GIVE ME! In the 70’s we lost our families- to divorce and careers this was the latchkey age. In the 80’s we lost our hope, In the 90’s we lost our leadership and today we have lost our reason.
Today nobody is out of bounds. Can you imagine being a referee in a football game without sidelines, when do you blow the whistle and call out of bounds When the ball carrier is up in the bleachers? Nobody Knows!
I think it is tragic when Christians live in the world the same way the world does. We don’t know God’s word, we don’t know His ways and we don’t want to impose His narrow way on our children because they may not like us. Do you know most H.S. kids when asked to name a king in the bible will say King James.They have no clue why we celebrate Easter.
Everything is relative- so where do kids and young adults get their values?- not from the church- the church is a sub-culture in America today.
Do you know that by the time a child enters pre-school , he has watched 4000 hours of TV. By the time they are 15 that number jumps to 15,000 hours. How does that compare to the time your college graduate. Spent in a classroom?
More importantly how does TV time in your house compare to time spent in the bible? God’s time?
Billy Graham said in a speech in 1989 at Gordon Conwell Seminary – these words:
Guess what folks God’s word is not being taught today in the home or the schools the TV is telling our children what is good or bad. As a matter of fact the media is telling our children there is no good or bad. Everything’s relative. We’ve lost sight of the fact that some things are always right and some things are always wrong. We have lost our reference point. We don’t have any moral philosophy to under gird our way of life in this country, and our way of life is in serious jeopardy and serious danger unless something happens. And that something must be a spiritual revival.
Where does a spiritual revival start? It starts in my heart and your heart. Because we cry over the condition that this country is in. And we pray, pray and pray some more. Not Dear God but Oh God!
Do you really know what 100s of thousands of kids do on spring break in Cancun, Matzalan, Dayotna or Panama City? You don’t want to know? Think of debauchery, total immorality and not care who sees you doing it.
Compared to them I look like Mother Teresa, but God told me not to compare my life to the world’s standard but to His standard, the one who was a man just like me, but without sin. Don’t compare yourself to your neighbor.
Don’t make your standards just a little better than man’s standards, follow the model of the Son, Jesus and crucify the flesh. That is what Jesus meant when he said, Mat 10:38 "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
Mat 10:39 "He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.
Don’t set your mind on men’s standards but on God’s. There is much that is evil in the world and yet it is dangerously attractive to us. They are not the most obvious evils that are quite repulsive to us and therefore hold little temptation for us. But we must keep our eyes open to the seductive evils, that can get a grip on our lives and bring with it moral and spiritual collapse. We must learn to identify it according to the truth of God’s word and then discipline ourselves to avoid it. When God’s word His goodness is in our heart we will not fill it with the lies of the tempter.
God has a lively, profound interest in man’s being good; he wills that man should be good, happy—for without goodness there is no happiness.
LUDWIG ANDREAS FEUERBACH (1804–1872)
Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.
EDWIN HUBBEL CHAPIN (1814–1880)
Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life—it points to another world. Political or professional reputation cannot last forever, but a conscience void of offense before God and man is an inheritance for eternity.
DANIEL WEBSTER (1782–1852)
The heart of a good man is the sanctuary of God.
ANNE-LOUISE-GERMAINE DE STAËL (1766–1817)
My wife says to me Joe Bedy you are a good man, but you know I know the only reason that is true, has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with Christ!
